The kitchen cabinet manufacturing industry comprises a large number of firms distributed geographically throughout the United States and most other countries. Many of these firms are small in size with limited business experience and resources in the areas of both financial and staff.
In general, cabinets are built using two fundamentally different approaches. Most of the smaller manufacturers build custom cabinets, each job being handled as a custom installation with the cabinets and layout being designed specifically for the job. Individual cabinets may or may not be the same as products built for previous installations.
In the majority of custom cabinet installations, the final design and layout is the result of interaction and negotiations between the cabinet builder and the ultimate end user. When the design and layout of the product has been finalized, the cabinet maker must create shop drawings or other documentation to provide the information needed to build the cabinets, must seek out and develop a business relationship with vendors that can supply the materials, components and supplies that will be needed, and must order the appropriate quantity of such materials, components and supplies.
The effort required to perform these tasks can be substantial, especially if materials, components and supplies are purchased from a number of different suppliers. For this reason, most custom cabinet builders restrict the products they offer to a small number of vendors or distributors. This however, also reduces the variety of materials, components and supplies that the cabinetmakers can offer to their customers, making the selling process more difficult.
The second approach to cabinet making is to build essentially standard cabinets that are used unchanged, in combination with one another and with custom filler strips to achieve a kitchen layout that meets the customer's needs. This can reduce the overall cost, since it is not necessary to perform the cabinet design function for each piece. Also, if cabinets are built in standard sizes using traditional woodworking equipment, higher productivity and thus lower costs can result. This is offset by the additional cost of building and warehousing cabinets that were built in larger batches.
Using the mass-produced, standard cabinet approach, the materials, components and supplies required are generally purchased in quantity from a small number of vendors. While this may result in lower prices, it also reduces the variety available to the cabinet customer.
There are many vendors of materials, components and supplies attempting to sell their products to cabinetmakers. Since both approaches to cabinetmaking generally restrict the number of different vendors a particular cabinetmaker uses, competition to become one of the chosen vendors is intense.
There are currently a number of companies that develop and sell various types of software products to cabinetmakers. Such software generally comprises graphic design systems with varying degrees of facility, the price of such software generally reflecting its capability. In addition, most of these software products are sold in modules, allowing additional capabilities to be added to a basic system at ever increasing cost. Also, the software suppliers generally charge for software updates as well as for support and training, at regular intervals. Revenue to support the daily operations of the software vendors as well as the actual software development costs comes directly from the cabinetmakers through the aforementioned charges. Most cabinetmakers are aware of the existence of the aforementioned software products although a relatively small portion of the overall market has actually purchased such products. The likely reason for this is the initial and ongoing cost associated with the software products that offer a desirable level of features and capabilities. Most cabinetmakers are small companies and the costs associated with the software products represent a significant obstacle to these companies.
In addition to software products, certain companies have begun to offer CNC routers that can take the output from the software products and automatically produce the components necessary to build the cabinets. This dramatically increases productivity for the cabinet builder but such systems tend to be expensive. Although these systems can be cost justified for many cabinetmakers, the relatively large investment coupled with uncertainty of the economic result of using such a system results in most companies postponing a decision to adopt this technology.
In view of the foregoing, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide a method by which cabinetmakers can be provided with high-performance cabinet design software, updates and support free of charge, thus improving their productivity and profits.
Another object of the present invention is to allow cabinetmakers, using the aforementioned software, to select as part of the cabinet design and layout process, materials, components and supplies from a large number of industry suppliers.
A further object is to allow cabinetmakers, using the aforementioned software, to present to the final customer a realistic view of a complete kitchen and allow the customer to assist in selecting materials, components and supplies that will be used in building the kitchen.
A still further object is to allow the electronic ordering of the aforementioned materials, components and supplies from a single source with little or no clerical effort. Another object is to provide the cabinetmaker with information about the potential savings that could be realized for each job processed, if each job were to be processed on a CNC router as opposed to the traditional methods currently being used, making the justification for the purchase of such equipment clear, thus encouraging such a purchase.
A further object is to provide vendors to the cabinet industry a vehicle for promoting and marketing their products to the cabinetmaker's customer in a highly effective selling market.
Further objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed descriptions and accompanying drawing.